Top positive review

In this book Burleigh describes how our present world has been shaped by the clash of rising and declining powers. He sees our current era as defined by what he calls two shocks. The first, at the start of the '90's, was the ending of the Cold War, which left America standing alone as the only surviving world power, whilst the second was the financial crash and Great Recession of 2008, which, in the West, resulted in increasing inequality and social division. Over this period the Middle East became a crucible of conflict and war. Meanwhile, Europe and America continued to be the promised land for refugees escaping violence corruption and poverty in their homelands,

Burleigh's chapters provide succinct summaries of the political, economic and social histories of the Middle East, Turkey, Russia, China, the USA and the EU. I felt his outline of Iranian history and diplomacy was particularly helpful in understanding the complex factors fuelling conflicts across the Middle East. He is scathing about the West's prospects under President Trump - "no geopolitical thinker but rather a capricious bullying narcissist.....America and the world's problems require patience, knowledge and thought....". America's weakness opens opportunities for Russia and China to exercise their brands of power more widely on the global stage. The book is pessimistic about the EU's potential to contribute to a more stable and prosperous world. Burleigh views the European project as ponderous, much too divided and consumed by nationalistic tensions, e.g. Brexit, to make a genuinely global impact. A defining feature of the present is how the West is fading as the major driving geopolitical force in the world.

Burleigh's arguments are supported by copious references drawing on Anglo-American and European sources. His book is not intended as prophecy and doesn't suggest any easy simplistic solutions to resolve the issues it identifies. Rather, Burleigh succeeds in giving a coherent account of the complex forces shaping the world we live in today. He provides a comprehensive challenging analysis of international relations which offers much food for thought.

Top critical review

Damn strange book. Clearly, very timely; deals with many aspects of less well known global issues and the relationship between individual, group and national players; but so badly written......lots of unexplained acronyms, sentences that wander off to a paragraph length and leave the reader lost; consecutive sentences that are contradictory.........I found myself reading this book three times over because I kept having to re-read so often. Grammar and syntax are lost ideals......a shame. I don't know if this style is common to the author's other works, as I haven't read them, or whether it is just editorial, but wow! This review has been all about the words, their order and relationship, not about what they add up to mean, which I guess reflects the flaws in the book.

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In this book Burleigh describes how our present world has been shaped by the clash of rising and declining powers. He sees our current era as defined by what he calls two shocks. The first, at the start of the '90's, was the ending of the Cold War, which left America standing alone as the only surviving world power, whilst the second was the financial crash and Great Recession of 2008, which, in the West, resulted in increasing inequality and social division. Over this period the Middle East became a crucible of conflict and war. Meanwhile, Europe and America continued to be the promised land for refugees escaping violence corruption and poverty in their homelands,

Burleigh's chapters provide succinct summaries of the political, economic and social histories of the Middle East, Turkey, Russia, China, the USA and the EU. I felt his outline of Iranian history and diplomacy was particularly helpful in understanding the complex factors fuelling conflicts across the Middle East. He is scathing about the West's prospects under President Trump - "no geopolitical thinker but rather a capricious bullying narcissist.....America and the world's problems require patience, knowledge and thought....". America's weakness opens opportunities for Russia and China to exercise their brands of power more widely on the global stage. The book is pessimistic about the EU's potential to contribute to a more stable and prosperous world. Burleigh views the European project as ponderous, much too divided and consumed by nationalistic tensions, e.g. Brexit, to make a genuinely global impact. A defining feature of the present is how the West is fading as the major driving geopolitical force in the world.

Burleigh's arguments are supported by copious references drawing on Anglo-American and European sources. His book is not intended as prophecy and doesn't suggest any easy simplistic solutions to resolve the issues it identifies. Rather, Burleigh succeeds in giving a coherent account of the complex forces shaping the world we live in today. He provides a comprehensive challenging analysis of international relations which offers much food for thought.

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There is a tendency on the part of some reviewers to use indiscriminately adjectives such as masterly and magnificent to describe a book even when it does not deserve such accolades. This reviewer is going to use those descriptions in this review because Michael Burleigh's book is truly magnificent . The author's analysis of the 2007 financial crisis is masterly. His condemnation of bankers and politicians is devastating. His exposure of, for example Trump has not been bettered. And he nails as have others the lies of Clinton that they were strapped for money. Three weeks prior to losing the election she was paid $650,000 for three speeches to bankers. He has little time for Cameron, a PM who scooted off and left a mess.

The book is not an example of futurology . It is about the present plus a sensible look based on evidence at the next few years only. Burleigh is only too aware of the dangers of crystal ball gazing. He is equally cautious about using the past as a predictor. He is aware that to write.about now is dangerous but In his case his judgement Is sound.

His book is about the change from 1991 to the present, a period during which the US lost its superpower dominance and power became dispersed among other great powers of which China with its population of around 1.4 billion is easily the most important. The change has inevitably been disruptive. He quotes the Thucydides Trap as a warning.

The author points out that the transition has been worsened by globalisation, the penetration of the local by the global, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the financial crises after 2008. These have triggered left and right populismin America, parts of Europe and Russia. The Middle East is in chaos and terrorism threatens large areas of the globe. India and South Africa are pseudo democracies at best. I am surprised he makes no mention of the long-standing rivalry between India and China, a rivalry that could have very serious consequences for all of us.

Donald Trump is daily damaging the reputation of America and its soft power. A promised $53 billion military build up is not the answer to the threats it faces. Tanks and carriers are no longer relevant to these threats. His bluster towards North Korea smacks of the playground.

The title of this book is taken from Dickens' superb book The Tale of Two Cities. It is well worth reading the whole passage it comes from. Burleigh's comments about China are insightful and convincing. As he say the Chinese are not stupid. Are they really interested in climate change when they sell India a new coal power plant every three weeks for the next five years? Their economy is growing at around six per cent. This is far bigger than America's. The new head of Interpol is a Chinese paramilitary police general. It has launched its ORI plan to build and connect infrastructure across Asia to the Middle East and Europe to boost growth and trade. China dwarfs Russia's GDP. Putin is described as a typical ex KGB man, morose, paranoid and resentful as well as corrupt. Nonetheless he appeals to many Russians for the same reason that Hitler appealed to Germans in 1933; he promises to restore Russia to great power status. Hence Ukraine and the Crimea.

Burleigh points out that since 2008 major global economies have shrunk by roughly 12 percent while top executive pay has increased by almost 450 per cent since 1997. He labels as villains the crooked investment bankers who sold spurious prducts and rigged the Libor rate. He also attacks the politicians, like Gordon Brown who cosied up to the bankers and relaxed the rules. The regulators, accounting firms and lobbyists also get a strong ticking off.

There is a most welcome passage about the paucity of historical knowledge in the general public. Many cannot place Ukraine on a map- I know of university students who can't place New Zealand or Poland. In America 30 per cent of Republicans when asked if they would support the bombing of Agrabah said yes. In fact it doesn't exist. It is a place in Aladdin, the Disney csrtoon. Along the way several myths are shattered. For example , despite Tony Blair's impassioned and sycophantic speech to Congress there is no special relationship with America. We share values but that is all. Burleigh gives the cost of the Iraq disaster. Apart from thousands of deaths, military and civilian, and incompetent attempts to quell sectarian violence, the financial cost is around $13 trillion. By the time the cost of disability and medical costs are added this will rise to an estimated $60 trillion in 2025. I have seen other evidence that supports this.

Statistics abound. For example, Saudi Arabia is the world's seventh largest consumer of pornography, Pakistan leads the world. In he former, women'' legs on cornflake packets are covered in black tape. 162 of India's 543 members of parliament are facing criminal charges for rape and assault. Petrol in Iran costs less than bottled water. Russia spends $237 million per km of road built. The US spends six million dollars. In two years, 2011 to 2013, China used 50 per cent more concrete than the US did in the whole of the 20th century.

This present-centred book has limitations which the author readily accepts. Its key aim is to try to explain why we have passed from relative stability up to 2013 to the current anxious and bewildering present. Burleigh is scathing about Bush junior, fake Tony Blair and the neocons. He warns of the coming fourth industrial revolution that will cause unemployment. He has thankfully avoided human interest tales. Instead he gives us facts, analysis, statistics. His projections stop at 2020 . He leaves beyond that year to prophets.

A truly superb account by one of our foremost historians.The resesrch is formidable, the style trenchant. Some of his criticisms, for example of Bush junior and Blair are devastating. He describes Trump as a pathological narcissist. He apparenty thought Belgium was a city. Trump's body language is akin to that of Mussolini, especially the pout.

This is a book to savour, a book to make you think. You may not agree every view, every judgement but you will enjoy the experience.

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I got what I wanted from the facts stated here - it improved my knowledge of the recent past and current events.

The varied writing style of the book spoiled my read. I felt the author did not concentrate on each sentence’s clarity. The approach is long winded eg: using ten instead of four words; using a Latin/Greek based word and then defining it, but not on other occasions; stating a fact and then providing an unnecessary example; every noun seemed to attract an adjective; referring to films, childhood comics, a person’s sexuality or their ethnicity; being derogatory/approving of something or someone instead of leaving the reader to make up their minds. When the writer concentrated on presenting facts I as he does then I found the read absorbing.